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Most players struggle to continue their life after they retire from the game but not Rob Key.

The ex-cricketer seems to be adapting fine, and he says he relishes retirement.

For most former players, concerns when they near retirement range from making money to pay bills, finding new roles in the society, and living with their legacies, if they have any. Rob Key took to sports commentary – like many sports people generally – after he retired from his 18-year career.

Key said he does not regret leaving last April as his current role gives him the feel of the dressing room and all the perks without the hard work of playing.

“I haven’t missed it at all actually. In fact, I wonder how I did it for so long! I’ve been very, very lucky that I’ve been able to go and work for Sky and at the minute it seems a better job than playing. It’s like cricket without the fielding! You get to watch cricket and you get that dressing room environment at Sky anyway,” he said.

He added that he knew retirement was imminent so instead of delaying he decided to take the plunge. Since retiring, he has done several things that keep him happy like charity work and playing golf.

Umar Akmal reckons that keeping the body weight under control is a very tough challenge for him because his body is built in a unique way.

It doesn’t matter what kind of food he takes, even if it’s a light food, he still ends up putting on a few kilos.

Umar was in line for selection in the Pakistani squad for the limited-over games on the tour of Caribbean, but, the selectors couldn’t pick him because he was not able to prove himself fit enough.

Pakistan come for a lot of criticism for their fielding in limited-over Cricket and one of the reasons why they can’t field as well as some of the other international teams is that the fitness standard of their players is poor. So, the management has now set a certain fitness benchmark for every player which they have to meet if they want to be selected.

To check who meets that fitness benchmark and who doesn’t, there was a fitness test organized for the probable players by the team management which was supervised by the head coach himself. Umar failed to come through that test and thus missed out on selection.

Just a few days after scoring a century on his Test debut, Keaton Jennings has been handed the captaincy position for the England Lions tour of Sri Lanka next year.

The new captain will be joined in the four day squad by Haseeb Hameed, whom he had replaced in the Test side as he worked his way back to fitness, due to a broken finger he suffered from back in India.

Ben Duckett is another name in the Lions party. He had opened the batting alongside embattled Alastair Cook, captain of the England Test side. He would however be present only for the one-day fixtures.

They would play two four day games, which would then be followed by a five match 50 over series in February and March 2017

The Lions tour comes at a good time for the duo of Jennings and Hameed, especially in a period where England would lack Test Cricket as they host South Africa between December and July.

It also provides an opportunity for Duckett to press his white-ball credential, considering that he was left out of the limited –overs squads to meet India next month following an impressive ODI debut in Bangladesh.

Since, Kolkata had not played Shakib Al Hasan, Gautam Gambhir had to get the quota of the 5th bowler out of his part timers and rather than putting them in with two right handers at the crease in the middle overs, he gambled with Yusuf right away at the start.

When the Baroda bowler got the first over away with only four on the board and then, Morne Morkel cleaned up Dhawan for Henriques to come in, Gambhir was supposed to go to another one of his strike bowlers for one more breakthrough.

But, sensing Henriques’ inefficiency against spin having seen him in previous games, the skipper kept Yusuf on and he chipped in with two more overs with being hit for a boundary only once.

Rohit Sharma is hitting the white Cricket ball cleaner than anybody else in the world at the moment.

The right handed opener displayed his repertoire of shots yet again in Dhaka yesterday as he scored superb 80 runs for India against the hosts Bangladesh in the first game of the Asia Cup.

It was a really smart knock by Rohit. He was patient early on when the going was tough on a grassy wicket, but, he launched himself on the opposition when the right time arrived and took the game apart.

He also seemed to have picked his bowlers whom he wanted to attack.

Against the likes of Mustafizur and Mortaza, he was willing to be within himself, but, as Taskin came into the attack for his second spell and offered a bit of room, he opened his shoulders and cashed on.

Later on though, he went after Mustafizur and other bowlers too as the dew factor had come in and the ball had stopped fizzing around.

Rohit could actually have got the second twenty 20 ton of his career, but, in the last 10-15 deliveries of the Indian innings, he could not get as much of strike as he should have and in the 20th over, when the strike eventually came to him, he scooped one in the air to be caught at deep wicket.

The second test match between India and South Africa seems to be going to end in a draw because of the weather conditions.

There has been no play at all for the last three days because of the consistent rain.

Today, there was hope of some play as there had been no rain overnight and the umpires, after having a look at the ground for 3 or 4 times, had even declared a time of 2 pm for the start of play.

But, just a few minutes after that declaration, the rain decided to play the spoil sport again and although, it wasn’t too heavy, it stayed for almost 3 hours which made sure the outfield would not be in a condition for the players to take ground.

Now, there is only one day left in the game and only a miraculous show from either of the two sides can make the result possible.

Now, even if the weather permits India to resume their innings tomorrow, it would be highly unlikely that they would be able to take enough first innings lead till tea to back them to bowl South Africa out under that in the last session. It just does not sound realistic.

So, in all probabilities, the game would produce no result and the teams would be making their way to Nagpur with the series still 1-0 in favour of India.

Brian Lara has urged everyone associated with West Indies Cricket to lend total support to Jason Holder who has been appointed as the new test skipper of the national team.

Holder had been pretty impressive with his captaincy in 50-over format for the last few months and the administrators decided that he was perhaps ready to take the charge of the team in red ball Cricket too.

There have been concerns from different quarters regarding Holder’s age and inexperience at the test match level, but, according to Lara, the kind of maturity the Barbados resident showed in World Cup despite being under huge pressure at times, it seems he is somebody who has got natural leadership potential and if he is backed properly and is given the freedom to run the team his own way, he might turn out to be quite a successful captain.

Speaking in a chat show the other evening, Lara said, “I was commentating on World Cup games and I had a pretty close look at him and I was not disappointed with what I saw. There were many occasions when the heat was on, but, he did not get bogged down.”